Image Source: U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service Via Wikimedia Commons
April 24, 2019
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on Wednesday that hemp cultivators can officially apply for intellectual property protection for seed-propagated hemp, making the newly legal crop part of an existing program.
The move will cover certain hemp types for 20 years, allowing farmers to prohibit others from marketing their variety of the plant.
USDA’s Plant Variety Protection Office “provides intellectual property protection to breeders of new varieties of seeds and tubers,” the department said in a bulletin.
